Doug Wolter: Unwrapping the fall high school sports season

Nov. 2—A pre-winter shootaround:

Trojan football stuff

I wrap up Christmas presents with colorful wrapping paper (badly, I might add. My presents always come out looking like they'd been attacked by a deranged cat). I feel similarly nervous wrapping up the Worthington High School football season.

Let's go first with the obvious. The Trojans finished 1-8 and their only win was in the last regular season game against New Ulm at Trojan Field, 35-27. I must confess I was a little nonplussed by game's end because Worthington led the Eagles 35-7 well into the fourth quarter.

The Red and Black were dominant, and that was nice to see after eight tough losses. But they let their foot up on the gas and New Ulm came back to make the score more presentable.

That's nice, I guess, but I wanted the Trojans to maintain that one-sided score. I felt that they deserved it for how well they played on both sides of the football. I mean, I wanted them to be able to say, five or ten years from now, something like, "Yeah, we lost eight games. But we absolutely crushed New Ulm. You should have seen it."

But it's hard to use the word "crushed" when it's just an 8-point difference.

Football coaches often relax after putting the outcome beyond doubt. And the WHS brain trust wanted to let a few more reserves get onto the field. In almost every other case, I'd agree with that sentiment. But I just think I'd have made an exception under the circumstances.

That being said, I give enormous credit to head coach Geno Lais and his assistants — and to the Trojan players especially — for hanging in there when things seemed to go so haywire for much of the fall. There really are a whole bunch of outstanding football players on this team, and late in the year when the coaches adjusted the offense to use senior Abagotte Opiew as a tag-team starting quarterback, the offense took off. He consistently ran the ball well, and even when defenses knew he was coming, they found it hard to stop him. The defense played better near the end, too. Cudos.

And now for a few end-of-the-year statistics:

The Worthington Trojans were outscored 309-91 for the season, allowing 164 first downs and getting 70 for themselves. They were out-gained 2,055-810 in rushing and 851-485 in passing.

Opiew rushed for 561 yards and 7.1 yards per carry. Jacari Swinea rushed for 346 yards and 3.4 yards per carry. Quarterback Tucker Brandner completed 37 of 106 passes for 475 yards and two touchdowns. Swinea, Opiew, Ryan Lais, Omot Okony, Zeidi Nasim and Abagotte's brother Marenono all caught nine passes. Mak Lia averaged 22 yards per catch on his four receptions.

Zeidi led the team in total tackles (84) from his linebacker position. He had 39 unassisted tackles and 45 assisted tackles. Other leaders included Lais (47 tackles), Marenono Opiew (46) and Wesley Widboom (40).

Runners: On your marks, go!

The Minnesota state high school cross country meet is Saturday at St. Olaf College in Northfield, and, as usual, southwest Minnesota will bring a highly competitive bunch of athletes to the big event.

If we're talking about competitive, we've gotta start with Murray County Central/Fulda senior Amanda Overgaauw, who naturally placed first in the girls' Section 3A race in Luverne last week with plenty of room to spare. Did I say room to spare? She could have built a house on her way to the finish line and still captured her gold at the end.

Overgaauw is looking to repeat as the Class A girls champion. And nobody with all oars in the water would bet against her (she finished in 18:09.13 at last year's state race). Her twin sister Ashley, who is largely but not yet fully recovered from a hip injury she sustained last year, placed second in last week's section meet and finished sixth at state in 2021 (19:16.22). Another strong competitor will be Luverne's Jenna DeBates (third last year at state, 19:06.82).

Two Luverne boys, brothers Camden Janiszeski and Owen Janiszeski, are worth following. Owen, a sophomore who was second in this year's section run, was 17th last year at state (17:02.54) and Camden, a senior, was 15th at state last year (16:59.04).

Worthington has two outstanding runners competing in the state Class AA competition, Mikele Walu and Fanuel Wolday. Walu finished in 37th place last year in a time of 17:10.22. Wolday finished 31st in 17:00.9.

The Trojans were hoping to repeat as the section team boys champion (they placed sixth at state in 2021) but they didn't quite make it. Still, Walu and Wolday will represent the school well.

Soccer thoughts

Ever since the Worthington High School boys soccer team lost to Richfield 2-1 at Farmington last week in the 2022 state tournament, I've been asked why it's been so difficult for that outstanding program to win in a quarterfinal.

Well, it's complicated. Granted, it's tough on this town to think that in four state tournament trips (2017, 2018, 2021 and now 2022) the Trojans have gone 0-4. Having seen all those games, I think they were fully prepared for each one. They played well. They played confidently. They looked as focused and disciplined (to me, at least) as they'd looked in their best regular season and section games (and they just as easily could've won three of those state games as lost them).

But you know what? It's hard to win at the state level. And I think (and this is not intended as an excuse) it's even harder to win when your school sits in the extreme southwest corner of the state. There's just no way your regular season schedule can be as consistently challenging as, say, teams from the metro area — of which Richfield is one.

Head coach Juan Flores admitted as much after the Richfield loss when he told me that it's not just how you play, it's who you play. The metro teams play stronger regular competition.

Still, we should not be surprised if the Trojans make it back to state again in 2023. They'll be more of a senior-dominated team then. And I think that if they do, they'll be a good bet to accomplish a big goal of theirs — to play in the semifinals at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

Volleyball upsets happen

Over the years, I've grown almost oblivious to the idea that high-seeded high school volleyball teams can lose to low-seeded opponents in the early rounds of post-season tournaments. It just doesn't happen often, so I naturally assume the status quo.

Imagine my surprise when both the Jackson County Central Huskies (South Section 3AA) and the Heron Lake-Okabena/Fulda Coyotes (South Section 3A) were upset in the quarterfinals of their tournaments.

The HL-O/F loss to Adrian/Ellsworth was less of a surprise. The sixth-seeded Dragons are a good team and everybody knows it. But I've seen HL-O/F (the third seed) play in the regular season and I've been very impressed. They have a lot of exceptional athletes and they fly all over the court. The possibility of HL-O/F losing its first sectional match never really entered my mind. What did enter my mind was that HL-O/F could very well upset the higher seeds further down the road.

Well, there you have it. As they say on TV, that's why you "Play the Game!"

I was more surprised, frankly, that second-seeded JCC lost to seventh-seeded Montevideo in 3AA. Montevideo? The seventh seed? JCC finished second in the state in 2021 and I knew fully well that the Huskies brought a very strong team back for 2022. Montevideo? I never even looked Montevideo up to see what they had. I didn't think it mattered.

Live and learn. I guess we all do, sometimes, at tournament time.

Which brings us to the Worthington Trojans, who pulled off (I firmly believe) an historic victory last week in the first round of the Section 2AAA volleyball tournament, knocking off second-seeded Willmar in five thrilling sets (I wasn't able to attend, but it HAD to be thrilling for all the Worthington fans that made it to Willmar that night). Willmar was the No. 2-ranked Class AAA team in the state. Worthington was No. 7 — in the section rankings.

Ironically, the Trojans were beaten in five sets in their final regular season match, at home, against New Ulm, and they didn't play particularly well. They've usually been slow starters, and they never really got going against the Eagles.

But I recall that first-year head coach Courtney Opdahl insisted afterward that she retained just as much confidence in her Trojans as she ever did. She knows how good her team can be, she reminded me.

Well, the girls made Opdahl a prophet with their Willmar upset.

In the next round, Worthington bowed out of the tournament with a 3-game loss to fourth-seeded St. Peter. But all the games were tight. Worthington did itself proud.